4 Months old already!

Noelle is a healthy four months (and 1 week) old. She went for her checkup Friday, and weighed 14 lbs, 9 oz, and was 24 3/4 inches long. That charted her right at the 50th percentile for height and 75th for weight. I followed the advice from many friends and her doctor, and gave Noelle some infant Tylenol 30 minutes before her shots, and every 4 hours until bedtime. Boy did that make a difference! She was not fussy like last time, and we sailed through the day and night.

Now that the weather is so nice, Noelle & I enjoy getting out for walks, so any of you who are local, let me know if you want to meet one (late) morning for a walk!

One day we'll get around to taking pictures of the rest of us, but Noelle is the most frequent object of the camera because she is changing so much! Here's a current picture of her:

Fear Not

What is death? What happens after death? What exactly happens immediately after we die? How does God answer those questions in the Bible?

As you can imagine, I have been thinking a lot about the topic of death. A very dear relative of mine attends First Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Jackson, MS, and amazingly they are currently doing a special series on this very subject. They have something called podcasts of this series on their website, and I have been listening to them. They are so wonderful.

Here is the link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FirstPresFearNotHeaven

As of today, there are three sessions posted:
1) What is Death?
2) What Happens After Death?
3) What Happens When Christ Returns?

The second session - What Happens After Death? - was as if God heard my questions and sent this message just to me. I wish everyone who has ever lost someone could listen to this. It has made me so happy for my dad, for where he is, for what he is experiencing right now.

Listening to these podcasts is as simple as going to the link and clicking on one of the the mp3 files. It will play for you right over your computer. You can also right-click on a file and save it to your computer.

My heartfelt wish is that you set aside time to listen to this short series. I promise it will be worth it.

A Sudden Loss

Most of you who read this blog already know that last Wednesday I suddenly and unexpectedly lost my dad. All the sadness and troubles I've experienced previously in my life cannot compare to this. He was so young and healthy. He had so much energy and life. I am still in shock. The waves of intense sadness and grief still wash over me. I love him so much and miss him so much. He has left a huge, gaping hole in our family, as well as our church and his office.


I am so thankful that I moved back to Chattanooga in August of 2004. My main reason for moving was to be near my family, but I never dreamed something like this would happen. I am so thankful that I got to spend so much time with my dad, and that he was able to spend time with us. Here are some wonderful pictures of my dad with Connor when Connor was just a year old, at the Hamilton County Fair. As you can tell from the pictures, my dad thoroughly enjoyed showing all the animals to Connor.

Fire Ants Invade

We have battled fire ants (in many spots) in our yard ever since we moved here about 2 years ago. This weekend they decided to come into our house! Of course, we have had other ants in our house before, and after some treatment with Terro they quickly disappeared. These fire ants are not interested in the Terro nor in fire ant bait. [As as aside, Lance folded a little piece of paper and taped it over the fire ant bait, so our dog wouldn't be able to easily lick it but the ants would still crawl right through the bait. After checking out that situation, Connor described it as the ants going into the tent and pretending they're camping and eating the poison. We thought that was very perceptive and creative of Connor.]

By last night, the ants were so bad that they were crawling along every "line" in our kitchen and breakfast areas: along the floorboards, along the grout lines in between every tile on the floor, along the doorstep areas, etc. Some even ventured outside the "lines." Connor was bitten several times last night on his heel. It was a nightmarish situation for me, because I do not like bugs, especially not in my house! Especially not aggressive biting fire ants in my kitchen!

Now, compound the fire ant problem with our air conditioner ceasing to work yesterday. And, Lance had soooo much business work to do, especially involving phone calls that ate up his time. So, last night as I lay in bed (with all our windows open for the cool breeze), I could not sleep. Blessed little Noelle slept a record 10:00pm to 5:15am, but I only slept 10:30pm to 12:30am. The rest of the night I could not get the image of crawling ants out of my mind. I tried to pray without ceasing for peace. I tried remembering my blessings and how we were safe and sound and the ants were not the worst pestilence or problem in the world. I tried doing some extra hard Sudoku puzzles that usually help me fall asleep. Nothing worked.

Well, this morning we called the air conditioning repair man and he will come Thursday. We called the pest control people and they will come tomorrow. Lance has dedicated his day to our two problems, and has helped quite a bit. He discovered the problem with the air conditioner (a water pump is not working) and can do something to get our air conditioner to work. He would like to try to fix the problem, and if so we can cancel the repairman's visit, so that is what he's working on now.

Also, Lance came up with a creative way to reduce the volume of ants in the kitchen. We were getting nowhere with killing them one by one with a tissue, and Windex seemed to only temporarily stun them, so Lance started getting them with tape. He uses fat heavy duty masking tape strips, picks up many ants at a time, folds the tape on itself to trap and smash them, then tosses the strip into the trash. We still have hundreds of ants, but I am able to go into the kitchen again. I do have a wonderful husband.

New Noelle pictures

Here are some current photos of Noelle. She wore the green outfit that was Connor's in honnor of St. Patrick's Day.

Dutch Butter Cake

Last night was International Night at Connor's preschool. Each class chooses a country (usually a child or parent is from the country) and the class learns about the country, makes crafts representing the country, the sponsoring family displays things from the country, and they serve food and drink that you would eat in the country. It was so much fun to visit each classroom and taste the food and see the interesting pictures and things. Each child gets a little passport (with their picture in it) that gets stamped at each "country."

Connor's class choose The Netherlands, as his friend's father is from there. Our job was to make Dutch Butter Cake and bring it in. We were given the recipe and it was so simple and so delicious, I thought I'd share it. I like that it is very easy to do with children. (As you can see by the ingredients, it is not low carb or low fat.)

Dutch Butter Cake

1 Cup butter
1 1/3 Cup sugar
1 Egg
- Mix well
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
- Mix well
2 Cups flour
- Mix well
Pat into 2 round cake pans
Bake 18 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cool websites

I have found a couple of websites where I have recently spent a bit of my time, and I thought I'd share:

Time waster:
www.blogthings.com has all these crazy quizzes you can take. I don't know why they are so addictive, perhaps because they are really short and I feel I can take just one more, or perhaps because some of them are so bizarre I want to know how I'll do on them.

Useful:
www.dietfacts.com has the nutritional info for all kinds of foods, by brand or by restaurant. I just read about this site in Newsweek. I have been wanting to find a place to look up how many calories (and fat, carbs, protein, etc) are in particular food items we buy at fast food or sit down restaurants. I know that some of those delicious meals in nicer restaurants are swimming in butter and/or cream sauce, and sometimes wonder just how bad they are for me. Now I can find out.